Monkey-Shines

I’ve never really been able to get into graphic novels.  I tried to.  As a card carrying member of the geek generation I thought it was expected of me.  I’ve grown out of that phase and realized I don’t have to conform to expectations.  I’m my own geek, and I’m proud of that.

I think part of what holds me back is that I’m such an avid reader.  I love books, and while technically graphic novels are books, the illustrations tend to hinder me.  My mind’s eye can’t see past the illustrations.  I only see what the creators want me to see, and that takes away part of what I read for.   I can’t escape to my own little world if I’m being told where to go.

All that said, I did fall for some graphic novels, but not really the ones most people flock to.  Watchmen is big right now with the movie coming out recently, but the whole super-hero thing never appealed to me.   I read the graphic novel it’s based on, and it was good enough that I’d like to see what they did with it cinematically, but it’s not what I would call one my favorites.

I went more for the quirky ones.  Like Bone.  I fell in love with Bone very quickly.  It has the traditional quest in a vaguely “fantasy” setting that has always attracted me in my regular readings.  But it adds some characters in ways you might not expect.

On a recent trip to the bookstore to spend a couple of gift cards I had I found the all-in-one Bone collection.  I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t thought about Bone in years.  Since I never finished the series, it wasn’t finished when I started and I fell out of trying before he finsihed, I went ahead an plopped down my gift cards for it.  1300 pages of graphic novel gold was mine, and I will finally be able to finish the series I had all but forgotten about.

I like to keep my eyes on the search terms that bring people here.  Right now, more than a few of them are related to the old site that used to be at this address.  The search engines should get a more current spider going soon and get rid of those.

What really interests me are the unusual search strings that people use and end up here.  This weeks unusual search term is ‘monkey hobbies’.  Given that the site is “Monkey-Shines” I get the monkey portion, but it’s hobbies that throw me off.  Are they looking for hobbies that monkeys might enjoy?  hobbies involving monkeys?  I don’t get it, but I’m sure I’ll get stranger ones as time goes on.

It’s not often that I get to flex my fanboy muscles.  I’m not particularly rabid about a lot of topics. There is really only one.  Star Wars.  I’m a huge Star Wars fan.  Note that I said WARS not Trek.

None of that sissy beaming up and down from a planet shit for me.  If you want to be on a planet you hop your happy ass in a ship and fly down there.  If somebody just happens to not want you on that planet, then you will likely be making planetfall in several dozen more pieces than you planned, but that’s the price you pay when let a crazy old megalomaniac force you to fly around in an unshielded TIE Fighter, retard.

Okay, bashing Star Trek isn’t the reason for this post.  I was at the bookstore today, as I am often, when I ran across this little lovely.  My inner 7 year old took control faster than the Falcon can make the Kessel Run and snatched one up.  It goes perfect with my Darth Tater and means I only need one more to complete collection.  Yay!  Who needs to save money when there are Star Wars toys to buy.

I’m not one of the collectors who has to keep everything in a box.  I just snapped this pic real quick today.  It will probably be coming out of his box in a few minutes.  Darth Tater is unboxed and Artoo will be placed on the shelf with him.